Chemical Attack Equipment Seized by Syrian Forces

TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Syrian army troops have seized chemical attack equipment from a militant field hospital in the western port city of Latakia.

The equipment discovered at the facility in the city’s northern suburbs was of the type required to operate chemical weapons, official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

A field commander said the nature of the equipment suggested that militants had been planning to carry out attacks using chemical or biological weapons and blame the Syrian government for the assaults.

The Syrian government has already surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons to a joint mission led by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry.

Syrian troops also found medical supplies and equipment of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, and US origins at the hospital, Press TV reported.

A physician told SANA that some of the supplies retrieved from the facility were the ones used by the US Army such as drugs that stop bleeding immediately. Such medicines, the doctor said, could not be accessed easily.

The news agency also said Syrian forces have seized control of major hilltops held by militants in the Latakia Province.

The army has recently carried out a number of successful operations in the province. The military gains have expedited since Russia, acting on an official request of Damascus, began an aerial campaign against terrorist position in Syria on September 30.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured since March 2011, according to the United Nations. The crisis has also displaced nearly half of the country’s population.